Video: Video of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and President Barack
Obama from their debate on Tuesday night in New York.

Script: Mitt Romney speaking about Obama during the debate: “His policies haven’t
worked. Median income is down $4,300 a family and 23 million Americans are out of work. He said
that he’d cut in half the deficit. He just hasn’t been able … to put in place reforms for Medicare
and Social Security to preserve them. … That’s what this election is about. It’s about who can get
the middle class in this country a bright and prosperous future, and assure our kids the kind of
hope and optimism they deserve. I’m Mitt Romney, and I approved this message.”

Analysis: Romney correctly points out median household income is down during the
past four years and the federal deficit has exceeded $1 trillion annually during Obama’s
presidency.

Romney repeatedly has claimed that 23 million Americans are out of work, but that number is a
little misleading. That number includes not only the people who are unemployed but also those who
have stopped looking for work because they are discouraged or because their health won’t permit
them to work. The number also includes people who hold part-time jobs.

In addition, Romney relies on a selective use of statistics to suggest that Obama has failed to
devise policies that help middle-income Americans find jobs. In fact, nonfarm payrolls compiled by
the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that more people have jobs today than the day Obama took
office, at the height of the recession in January 2009. Since October 2010, the government reports
that nonfarm payrolls have grown every month. It is true that Republicans and many economists have
argued that the recovery should have been more vigorous and produced more jobs.

As for Medicare, Obama has proposed reforms. The problem is that Romney and Republicans don’t
like his reforms. Romney backs a plan that by 2023 would give seniors the choice to stay in
traditional Medicare, where the government pays most of the hospital and doctor bills for sen-iors,
or use federal subsidies to buy a private insurance plan. By contrast, Obama wants to reduce the
rate of growth in federal spending for Medicare while maintaining the current system.

In a speech last year at George Washington University in Washington, Obama pointed out that
two-thirds of the federal budget is spent on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and national
security, adding that “any serious plan to tackle our deficit will require us to put everything on
the table and take on excess spending wherever it exists in the budget.”

In that same speech, Obama pointed to a 15-member independent board of doctors, nurses and
medical experts who would “recommend the best ways to reduce” Medicare spending. Created by the
2010 health-care law championed by Obama, the board begins its work in 2014. But Obama has pointed
out that the board “can’t make decisions about what treatments are given.”